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What's the best potential grade people would give Ebron as a draft pick? Say he becomes a Travis Kelce type. I'd say an A is off the table given who we passed on and F probably is too in that scenario.

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I hate to judge a guy based on who we passed on... I mean there's always people who end up far exceeding their expectations. One could argue that NO ONE drafted before Tom Brady could get any decent grade. Further, the fact that he was picked where he was is a product of the GM, not the player himself. Take an extreme example... a person graded 25th over all who ended up as a fringe HOF player would was a solid A pick regardless of the fact the guy who was picked at 30th over all ended up as a "First Ballot" HOF career. Finally there may be legitimate reasons a player who was rated better by everyone was passed over. Again, an extreme example but it made no sense what-so-ever for the Lions to draft a RB in the first round in the 90s after Sanders came on board. Even if an RB was the best available player when the Lions drafted, it wouldn't have made sense for them to pick that guy so it isn't really fair to "punish" the player who was picked for circumstances out of his control.

All of that said, there is a difference between grading the pick (how good of a move did the GM make?) and grading the player (how well did the player live up to his draft position?).

If we're strictly talking grading the GM move, yeah... can't be an A because of Donaldson being more successful AND being in a position that would have helped the Lions.

I still think Ebron could end up fulfilling his draft position as a mid first round pick, but right now he hasn't done that. Last Sunday's game was encouraging... it was a step in the right direction.

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I hate to judge a guy based on who we passed on... I mean there's always people who end up far exceeding their expectations. One could argue that NO ONE drafted before Tom Brady could get any decent grade. Further, the fact that he was picked where he was is a product of the GM, not the player himself. Take an extreme example... a person graded 25th over all who ended up as a fringe HOF player would was a solid A pick regardless of the fact the guy who was picked at 30th over all ended up as a "First Ballot" HOF career. Finally there may be legitimate reasons a player who was rated better by everyone was passed over. Again, an extreme example but it made no sense what-so-ever for the Lions to draft a RB in the first round in the 90s after Sanders came on board. Even if an RB was the best available player when the Lions drafted, it wouldn't have made sense for them to pick that guy so it isn't really fair to "punish" the player who was picked for circumstances out of his control.

All of that said, there is a difference between grading the pick (how good of a move did the GM make?) and grading the player (how well did the player live up to his draft position?).

If we're strictly talking grading the GM move, yeah... can't be an A because of Donaldson being more successful AND being in a position that would have helped the Lions.

I still think Ebron could end up fulfilling his draft position as a mid first round pick, but right now he hasn't done that. Last Sunday's game was encouraging... it was a step in the right direction.

The Upton vs. Cespedes discussion falls squarely in the "strictly talking grading the GM move" category. I'm not trying to Judge Upton and say he's a failure because Cespedes is better (up until the last few weeks I wouldn't even need to do that!), rather I was trying to record my (and others) feeling of Upton vs. Cespedes through the season.

Just off the top of my head without putting too much contemplative thought into it, I generally would judge a pick (or signing) thusly:

Was there a reasonable chance of getting the player involved -- that is, where the resources needed to acquire the "other" player similar to the resources needed to acquire the actually player in question?

Did the "other" player play a position of at least somewhat similar need? -- It would be pretty stupid of the Tigers, for example, to spend resources getting a good firstbaseman rather than an outfielder even if the resources were similar.

Was the general feeling by most "in the know" that the "other" player was a good (if not great) player? -- There's always people who far out perform their expectations. I'm not going to blame a GM for not picking up someone that 99.9% of people felt wasn't going to amount to much but ended up being a star.

Was the general feeling by most "in the know" that the actual player was head and shoulders above the "other" guy? -- In the same way, if most people considered the actual player taken to be WORLDS better, but he didn't quite pan out that way and only ended up being about as good as the other guy... I'm also not going to be too hard on the GM.

I don't see a problem with judging Mayhew on the pick as:

He very reasonably could have gotten Donaldson.

Donaldson played a position that we needed help at.

Donaldson was generally considered a good player.

Ebron wasn't generally considered head and shoulders above Donaldson.

So, in my humble opinion it's reasonably to judge Mayhew and say even if Ebron ends up a good/great player... if Donaldson ends up a better player, then Mayhew was wrong to take Ebron.

In the same way with the Tigers:

It seems reasonable we could have gotten Cespedes for a similar contract.*

Cespedes (obviously) played a position of need

Cespedes was generally considered a good player.

Upton wasn't generally considered head and shoulders above Cespedes.

I'm not saying Upton sucks because he isn't as good as Cespedes... I'm saying I think Avila made the wrong decision.

On a side note, couldn't we then judge every GM who passed on Tom Brady as making the wrong pick? Well, in my little test scenario I'd say that isn't fair because it fails #3 and 4... Brady was not generally considered a good player. And most other players generally were considered head and shoulders above Brady.

*Yes, I know the SEEMS part here is important. We don't know and probably never will whether Avila attempted to sign Cespedes for a similar deal as Upton and was rejected. I've made this statement many times in that thread as well. I'm basing this on what appears to be the case .

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As it stands today, the lions are a better football team with Ebron. A straight up trade of the two players doesn't help us. We need Ebron to be productive to be a good offense. We need to be a good offense to be a good football team.

DT is too low priority a position as compared to a guy who has red zone ability. This isn't to slight the DT position, it's maybe the highest priority on the defensive side, but the modern game demands a disproportion of the success be attributed to the offensive side.

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As it stands today, the lions are a better football team with Ebron. A straight up trade of the two players doesn't help us. We need Ebron to be productive to be a good offense. We need to be a good offense to be a good football team.

DT is too low priority a position as compared to a guy who has red zone ability. This isn't to slight the DT position, it's maybe the highest priority on the defensive side, but the modern game demands a disproportion of the success be attributed to the offensive side.

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I fail to see where it has 'so much' more value. As Nas said, a DT with the ability to get to the QB or stuff the run is more valuable then a guy who can block reasonably well, catch 50 passes for 800-900 yards and 4-5 TD's. If you're talking about Gronk alone then maybe. Outside of one superstar TE in the league, I can't think of anyone else at the position who compares in valued production to some of the better DT's in the league.

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DT, especially a pass rushing DT, is so about 9000x more valuable than TE lmao. I have no idea what TP is smoking right now. I want some though.

How many playoff wins do Suh, Donald and Watt have combined? Please explain the 9000x value of a premier DT (yeah i guess Watt plays the end, but he pass rushes, the top three DTs in the NFL have never won a playoff game. Cam rolled with Olsen.

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How many playoff wins do Suh, Donald and Watt have combined? Please explain the 9000x value of a premier DT (yeah i guess Watt plays the end, but he pass rushes, the top three DTs in the NFL have never won a playoff game. Cam rolled with Olsen.

Probably because football is a team sport but just spitballing here....

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Probably because football is a team sport but just spitballing here....

No one says it isn't, just simply giving weight to the various positions. Offensive importance is probably 70 Percent, defense 30 percent. So if DT is most valuable position on defense, It's probably only worth 10-12% of the total team importance.

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I don't agree with your value breakdown at all, but even besides that, what does premier DT's not having playoff wins have to do with anything? It seems like a very random thing to point to that actually has no correlation to a player's value to a team in my opinion.

Edit: I actually decided to delete this post, first one I've tried since the switch, since I was basically just arguing and didn't really add anything to the conversation...but I can;t figure out how to delete it haha. So feel free to ignore this.

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How many playoff wins do Suh, Donald and Watt have combined? Please explain the 9000x value of a premier DT (yeah i guess Watt plays the end, but he pass rushes, the top three DTs in the NFL have never won a playoff game.

Correlation does not imply causation.

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I don't agree with your value breakdown at all, but even besides that, what does premier DT's not having playoff wins have to do with anything? It seems like a very random thing to point to that actually has no correlation to a player's value to a team in my opinion.

Edit: I actually decided to delete this post, first one I've tried since the switch, since I was basically just arguing and didn't really add anything to the conversation...but I can;t figure out how to delete it haha. So feel free to ignore this.

What would your value breakdown be? I am curious what other people think. Because my weighting system is why I conclude that being a great DT doesn't help your team as compared to great offensive player.